The Cupertino colossus has the best shot to be the world's first trillion-dollar company (requires just an 11% rise in market value, from $899 billion), Barron's Jack Hough reports:
- The four other contenders — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook — will likely take longer.
- "In its most recent fiscal year, Apple had $229.2 billion in revenue and $48.4 billion in earnings, roughly as much as the second- and third-most profitable U.S. companies, Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase, combined."
- David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners, which manages $25 billion: "You have to go back to Rockefeller and Standard Oil to find a company so dominant in a business so large ... [I]n many quarters, Apple collects more than 80% of gross profit across the smartphone industry."
- The Barron's takeaway: "We don't think the peak is near. Apple seems to be escaping its product supercycle peaks and troughs to post more-consistent year-to-year growth."